This section provides background information related to the present disclosure, which is not necessarily prior art.
When resources were abundant and inexpensive, cities and states built roads to virtually everywhere because drivers desired a clearer and smooth driving area that was gentler on tires and vehicle suspensions. Due to changing perspectives on resource management and economic transformations, many transportation agencies (local, state, and federal) are reverting numerous roads back to their original unpaved condition. Thus vehicles, particularly autonomous vehicles, will need to operate on unpaved roads or urban and rural two-track dirt roads (roads that are created by repeated driving over the same path or two-track as pertaining to the path left by a wheeled vehicle). Unpaved roads and two-track driving spaces provide a unique challenge to automated vehicles with systems designed to localize off distinct road surfaces and lane markings. The renaissance of unpaved roads and the need for special vehicles to traverse forest or fire service roads, or even pastures and farmlands, presents the need for a new generation of systems and methods for localizing and navigating a vehicle on underdeveloped and unmarked roads. The present teachings advantageously provide for such methods and systems for localizing and navigating a vehicle on underdeveloped and/or unmarked roads, as described in detail herein.